Click on the Google Preview image above to read some pages of this book!

First published in 1855 and reissued here in the second edition of that year, this two-volume work celebrates the life of the author, wit and clergyman Sydney Smith (1771-1845). A founder of the second Edinburgh Review, Smith is best remembered for his entertaining observations and witticisms. The work comprises a memoir, written by Smith's daughter Saba Holland (1802-66), and a selection of letters, edited by Sarah Austin (1793-1867). Together, the volumes offer private insights into a man who lived much of his life in the public eye. Sharing her father's sense of humour, Holland peppers her memoir in Volume 1 with many of his best jokes, while also emphasising his character as a compassionate clergyman, loving father and dutiful friend. Volume 2 continues with Smith's letters, selected for the light that they shed on his character.

Click on the Google Preview image above to read some pages of this book!

Novelist Peter Carey draws the reader into a wild and wonderful journey of discovery and re-discovery of Sydney.

After living in New York for ten years novelist Peter Carey returned home to Sydney with the idea of capturing its ebullient character via the four elements. 'I would never seek to define Manhattan by asking my New York friends for stories of Earth and Air and Fire and Water,' he writes, 'but that is exactly what was in my mind as I walked through immigration at Kingsford Smith International Airport.'

Carey draws the reader helplessly into a wild and wonderful journey of discovery and re-discovery. Reading this book is a very physical experience, as bracing as the southerly buster that sometimes batters Sydney's beauteous shores. Famous visual extravaganzas such as Bondi Beach, the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the Blue Mountains all take on a strange new intensity when exposed to the penetrating gaze of Peter and his friends.

Thirty Days in Sydney offers the reader a private glimpse behind the glittering facades and venetian blinds. It will exhilarate and enchant all who visit.

About the Author

Peter Carey was born in 1943 in Australia and lives in New York. He is the author of the highly acclaimed selection of short stories, The Fat Man in History, nine previous novels, Bliss, Illywhacker (shortlisted for the 1985 Booker Prize), Oscar and Lucinda (winner of the 1988 Booker Prize), The Tax Inspector, The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs (winner of the 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize), True History of the Kelly Gang (winner of the 2001 Booker Prize), My Life as a Fake, Theft, a book for children, The Big Bazoohley, and a work of non-fiction, Wrong About Japan.